Lake Eacham Circuit, Crater Lakes National Park - April 2022

Lake Eacham

Sam and I faced a 'big' drive of around an hour to relocate from Lake Tinaroo to Cairns today, so with plenty of time up our sleeves and the weather looking quite good we decided to stop off at Lake Eacham and go for a walk around the lake. Lake Eacham is an old volcanic maar that is filled with beautiful turquoise water and it is a popular spot on a nice day for swimming, picnicking and walking. We decided to do the walk around the lake to work up a bit of a sweat before hopefully finishing off with a swim.

We'd visit the pontoon at the end of the stroll.

The walk starts off as a sealed path.

Kauri Pine

This is an easy walk that should be within most peoples capabilities.

Heading off along the sealed path we started our counter clockwise stroll from the day use area. Despite being a lakeside stroll there are surprisingly few water views on this stroll, it's really the rainforest that is the star of the show. After around 1 kilometre the sealed path finished and we then walked a good gravel path pretty much the rest of the way around. A bit over halfway around the circuit we came to a couple of giant Strangler Figs, one of them spanning the track so that we had to walk through a 'tunnel' in its root system.

The Lake Eacham Walk, Crater Lakes National Park.

The sealed path finished after awhile and we found ourselves walking a good benched track above the lake.

Somewhat surprisingly we mostly only had fleeting views of Lake Eacham. 

Lake Eacham

Lake Eacham

There are some huge old Strangler Figs here.

The track actually tunnels through this Strangler Fig.

After checking out the big Strangler Figs we continue on our nice stroll. This last section of the walk featured an Echidna sighting (I didn't even know that they live in the rainforest), a Water Monitor, turtles and fish - although we didn't manage to see any of the freshwater crocs that allegedly call the lake home. With our circumnavigation virtually complete the track dropped down to almost water level and we wandered out to get a view from a floating pontoon - this pontoon is also a good spot for a swim although you'll be dropping into some deep water. A couple minutes after leaving the pontoon we arrived back at the day use area and it was time for me to sample the cool water - every walk should finish with a swim in a freshwater lake I think, especially if it is in the tropics!

Crater Lakes National Park.

Lake Eacham Walk, Crater Lakes National Park.

Pretty well the complete circuit was shaded from the tropical sun. 

Lake Eacham Walk.

I wasn't even aware that Echidna's lived this far north. 

Lake Eacham

The Dirt.

According to my GPS we walked 3.7 kilometres and climbed 60 metres on this easy stroll. This walk should be suitable for wheelchairs and pushers as there are no steps - although it would be a hard work in a wheelchair as there are some reasonable inclines. The day use area at Lake Eacham has toilets, BBQ's, picnic tables and shelters as well as great swimming. Numerous walking guides have covered this stroll over the years so information shouldn't be hard to find. I used the notes out of the Woodslane book Best Walks around Cairns & the Tablelands as well as my Allrails map and my GPS topos - that said, you are not going to get lost along this stroll!

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There was quite a bit of aquatic life in the lake...

... however we didn't spot any of the Freshwater Crocodiles.

Looking across Lake Eacham towards the day use area from the pontoon. 

Lake Eacham

I'm going to have to start open water swimming I think - I'm getting pretty rusty nowadays. 

No croc sightings today!